| Grex > Agora41 > #42: |
| response 25 of 69: | 
Apr 1 14:52 UTC 2002 |
#24> So you're saying that lying under oath, even at a trial that had nothing to do with his political capacity, doesn't make him corrupt? How about using his political position to get sex (would Lewinsky really have sucked his cock if he wasn't President?)?
| response 26 of 69: |
Apr 1 15:20 UTC 2002 |
That is correct. He was trying to cover himself on a very personal matter that concerned only himself and family. There was no violation of his oath of office. It wasn't "corrupt", it was just stupid. I do not know Ms. Lewinsky and she has not confided in me about her actions. I doubt, though, that he "used his political position" to seduce Lewinsky. I would suspect it was quite the reverse, and he was used by her. But, EITHER WAY, it was a personal matter.
| response 27 of 69: |
Apr 1 15:43 UTC 2002 |
I might buy that argument if Lewinsky had been the only incident. Lewinsky was just the only one they could prove. Clinton had quite a few women claiming he tried to leverage sex out of them with his political power. what's-her-name's case wasn't thrown out because of lack of evidence, for instance, it was thrown out because she was claiming harassment and the judge ruled that what she described (being taken to a hotel room and propositioned for sex) didn't qualify as harassment. Perhaps "using his position for sex" is a mild form of corruption compared to, say, giving deferential treatment to an energy company in exchange for campaign dollars, but it *is* corrupt. (What's her name = Paula Jones, I think)
| response 28 of 69: |
Apr 1 16:03 UTC 2002 |
Clinton wasn;t the only "incident" for Lewinsky, either.
| response 29 of 69: |
Apr 1 16:18 UTC 2002 |
Wouldn't you consider using the political power of his position to
attempt to cover up (x), even if (x) wound up being a matter of purely
personal significance, corrupt?
| response 30 of 69: |
Apr 1 17:13 UTC 2002 |
He did not use the "political power of his position" to try to cover up anything. How did he use "power"? He just lied, like anyone else.
| response 31 of 69: |
Apr 1 17:34 UTC 2002 |
Re #0: > There's more, if you can stand the suspense. Mr. Abraham > gave more face time to people who backed Mr. Bush for > President than he did to environmentalists who supported > Al Gore. In drafting a bill to increase oil and coal > production, in other words, the Bushies consulted people > who know something about oil and coal. This is flawed logic; it implies that only people who are in favor of more usage of oil and coal know anything about oil and coal. By that argument, the American Lung Association does not know anything about cigarettes, for example.
| response 32 of 69: |
Apr 1 17:36 UTC 2002 |
#30 I agree with. I'm not aware of any evidence that Clinton tried to obstruct the investigation any more than anyone else in his position may have done. Of course, I think the whole thing was silly. Bush wants to make war, and that's ok. Clinton wants to make love, and that's not ok.
| response 33 of 69: |
Apr 2 01:03 UTC 2002 |
1. BC dispatched his taxpayer-paid cabinet secretaries to go around the country and lie for him. 2. gull, I hate to burst your bubble on the evil Bush energy plan, but here's what the WSJ reported on 3/27: "As he helped the Bush administration write its national energy report last year, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham heard from more than 100 energy industry executives, trade association leaders and lobbyists, according to documents released by the Energy Department," today's New York Times reports (link requires registration). "Mr. Abraham did not meet with any representatives of environmental organizations or consumer groups, the documents show." To find out why Abraham didn't meet with the environmental groups, though, you have to read today's Washington Times: The Bush administration sought the advice of environmental groups in drafting its energy plan, but several declined to participate or suggested that Bush officials check their Web sites for information, just-released documents show. A month and a half before President Bush's energy plan was announced, the Energy Department contacted Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense, the World Resources Institute, Resources for the Future and four other groups to discuss conservation and energy efficiency. However, an unstated number of other environmental groups rebuffed administration overtures."
| response 34 of 69: |
Apr 2 03:07 UTC 2002 |
You don't find it even the slightest bit hard to believe that every
energy company contacted cared enough to send a represantative, but none of
the environmental groups contacted cared that much, given the kind of
emotional zaniness that environmental groups are famous for? What did they
do, call the public hotlines for those groups and ask right off the bat for
the group's affiliations from some minimum-wage front line phone answerer?
| response 35 of 69: |
Apr 2 06:26 UTC 2002 |
Apparently waht klg says in #33 is a lie. "Thursday, March 28, 2002 By H. Josef Hebert, Associated Press WASHINGTON Q Environmentalists said they had requested a meeting with Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham in the months prior to release of the administration's energy report but were rebuffed by an aide who cited Abraham's busy schedule. John Adams, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Wednesday that the refusal to meet with the environmentalists stands in sharp contrast to the eight meetings Abraham had with energy and business groups in early 2001 to discuss the energy plan. " (http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/03/03282002/ap_46802.asp)
| response 36 of 69: |
Apr 3 01:06 UTC 2002 |
curlie! I am shocked! I said nothing of the sort. I, like you was quoting from another source. Your's must be more accurate, of course, because we all know that "environmentalists" NEVER lie. (Ignoring those folks who planted lynx hair and those others who used "misleading" information to turn off the water to farmers in Oregon.)
| response 37 of 69: |
Apr 3 01:15 UTC 2002 |
So, in general, you'd characterize environmentalists as passionate
enough to lie to other people about what they have and haven't done, but not
passionate enough to take the time to explain their views to a presidential
comittee?
| response 38 of 69: |
Apr 3 01:22 UTC 2002 |
That's not even close to what I said, mealey.
| response 39 of 69: |
Apr 3 01:44 UTC 2002 |
Sigh.
| response 40 of 69: |
Apr 3 02:14 UTC 2002 |
The environmentalists have nothing to hide and I am sure they can prove their contention with phone/mail/fax records. On the contrary, the Bush administration has a lot to hide because they wanted to and did accept input only from their financial supporters. The answer, of course, is to peel off the next layer and divulge evidence for the contention of each. Since the Bush administration won't divulge even who they met with, they are likely to be even more secretive about the evidence for other parts of the negotiations. The EDF (now ED) had a spokesperson on CNN tonight showing what they got from the Bush Administration in response to a FOIA request: 11,000 pages of censored records. They have filed another request for the uncensored information about who met with whom when. This is a major Bush scandal.
| response 41 of 69: |
Apr 3 04:21 UTC 2002 |
http://www.energy.gov/HQPress/releases02/marpr/pr02052_v.htm "For example, one document released today is an August 10, 2001 letter from DOE to the General Accounting Office (GAO) regarding the work of the energy task force. The GAO is conducting a review of the development of the National Energy Policy and asked DOE to provide additional information about contacts with environmental groups. DOE's response in the August 10th letter stated: Beginning March 21, 2001, staff from the former Office of Policy contacted environmental and energy efficiency non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Successful contacts and at least one substantive discussion was held with each of the following NGOs during the last 10 days of March, 2001: Alliance to Save Energy, Environmental Defense, American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, Sierra Club, Resources for the Future, World Resources Institute, Greenpeace, Association for Wind Energy, Tellus Institute. Not all organizations were responsive. Several did not return phone calls and messages. We asked each organization for policy suggestions that might be considered for inclusion in the national plan directed toward energy supply, conservation or efficiency. It was made clear in the course of discussion that we could not guarantee inclusion, but only consideration. In general, we encountered a lack of responsiveness to the offer to submit ideas for NEP consideration, reflected in the paucity of callbacks and the occasional response of ?check our web site.' (SOURCE: August 10, 2001 DOE letter to GAO.) Even though contact was sometimes unsuccessful, DOE actively sought all viewpoints. For example, one document being released by DOE is an energy report issued by the NRDC, one of the 17 groups that sought documents under a FOIA action. This NRDC report, entitled "A Responsible Energy Policy for the 21st Century," was carefully reviewed by DOE staff and resulted in 9 of 19 NRDC recommendations (47 percent) getting included in the National Energy Plan. (The NRDC report may be viewed at http://www.nrdc.org/air/energy/rep/repinx.asp)." ----------------- So, who's lie? What 'major Bush scandal'?
| response 42 of 69: |
Apr 3 04:34 UTC 2002 |
That just proves the conspiracy is deeper than we thought!!
| response 43 of 69: |
Apr 3 04:49 UTC 2002 |
Yeah, it *is* sorta the 'black helicopter' type stuff of the left wing.
| response 44 of 69: |
Apr 3 06:34 UTC 2002 |
It's not really the responsibility of the environmental groups to necessarily be responsive. They probably have much fewer resources than the gov't, and likely have to decide how to best spend their scarce resources. It might be stupid not to be responsive, but it is their privilege to be so. It is, on the other hand, the gov'ts responsibility to devise and implement responsible policy where needed. Listening only to industry leaders is no guarantee of bad policy, nor is soliciting input from lobby groups on "the other side" a guarantee of good results. These may be suggestive one way or the other, but they don't really mean much by themselves. For instance, in the above, it's not clear *which* 9 of 19 NRDC recommendations were adopted, nor which ones were not, but that's a small enough subset that there's a good chance for some serious policy rewriting in the editting process that threw out the other 10 recommendations. It's also not clear just how meaningful the resulting report is. The gov't produces millions of pages of reports every year that get ignored, because they aren't convenient or came to the wrong conclusions. The real test is not the reports (which, since they consume trees, are a net environmental loss), but how does this affect real gov't policy, such as in terms of taxes, enforcement, use of federal lands and other resources, and other things that make a real difference in the world. So far, everything I hear makes me think our administration wants to do everything it can to *look* environmentally conscious, without the nuisance and bother of actually having to do anything substantive. The hydrogen car initiative, unfortunately, looks like just this sort of flash.
| response 45 of 69: |
Apr 3 07:11 UTC 2002 |
I think the point is that the energy dept. in fact consulted enviro groups as the referenced pointed out and contrary to their claims. http://www.energy.gov/HQPress/releases02/marpr/pr02052_v.htm Thus the liberal claim that enviro groups were never contacted is 'black helicopter' stuff. The fact that the enviro groups didn't write the energy policy to the exclusion of the energy industry they way they might have prefered is another issue altogether.
| response 46 of 69: |
Apr 3 14:08 UTC 2002 |
Re #44: I think the hydrogen car initiative was started because the previous "freedom car" high-fuel-economy vehicle project was dangerously close to proving that the industry's arguments against higher CAFE standards are largely bogus.
| response 47 of 69: |
Apr 3 16:18 UTC 2002 |
It is even more subtle. The hydrogen car will require a vast increase in the use of coal and natural gas to generate the hydrogen, which will be great for the coal and gas industries. The "freedom car" concept rests in conservation, using less fossil energy. The hydrogen car uses more.
| response 48 of 69: |
Apr 3 18:19 UTC 2002 |
Hydrogen *could* be generated with power from windmill farms, solar boiler towers, offshore convection towers, gyrokite generators, and other such sources. The problem is that hydrogen takes up God-awful amounts of space - even more so than methane which even with the recent price increase is still rather cheap compared to gasoline peak prices.
| response 49 of 69: |
Apr 3 21:30 UTC 2002 |
In theory, yes, but not for a very long time (and with much larger capital investments than would be required via fossil fuels), and certainly not under the Bush energy agenda. It would be an efficiency improvement to be able to run fuel cells with methane. So far, they don't work very well (or long). Developing this, however, makes more sense than developing hydrogen-fueled cars and the associated fuel synthesis infrastructure.